Sunday, February 26, 2012

Today afternoon, I went to a card making meetup where we were allowed to make the cards we wanted, with the card stock already made available to us and all the stamps and punches and the paraphernalia that are needed for card making. As I thought I will use this blog to share what I am doing and also to document how I made these cards and some new techniques I learnt along the way, that is what I tried to do in this as well.

Thanks to Jennifer from Stamping up who hosted us at her place today. We were about 10 women, some who have been paper-crafting and for some it was their firs time. And for few people like me, who have been trying things at home, it was refreshing to see so many new ideas. Every card was simple but had some subtle things that I had to learn. Of course, all the knowledge that Jennifer had accrued over past 10-15 years was really helpful as well. I felt like a kid left in a toy store looking at all the papers, the stamps, the punches, the inks. You name it, it was there. I got into it right away without wasting any time. I made 7 cards altogether during this exercise. But wanted to definitely make more of these.

To start with, I will go one by one in the order that I started making these.I took a card stock (generally 8 1/2x11 cut in half for a card) and instead of doing a trifold, I used a scoring tool to fold into trifold card. Had tried it for the first time and thought it was fun. On both sides, I had specialty paper and on top is another card stock paper. And I needed two punches to cut scalloped edges and circle out and a "Thank You stamp for your Kindness" from Stamping Up.

This second one was a simple Hope card. The new thing that I had to do with this card was that I used crumb cake ink to write the caption behind so it blends into the card background and add a transparent sheet on top on which I stamped "H" with Stazon ink. I pasted the blue specialty paper to the card stock and then punched both together and then pasted the ribbon at the front and the sentiment at the back. On second thought I could have done it differently too.

This is a simple card and I took less than 5 mins to make this card. It was just coordinating pieces of paper and stamps put together. First there was violet card stock and top of it there was white and white design paper pasted together, which I added the border shadow effect to give a vintage look with sponge dauber. Then I stamped "Wonderful" and "friend" and then punched a button out and added a brad to it in the shape of a button. I loved the simplicity of this card.

This card was another simple one. I like making flowers in general and I loved how simple it was to stamp and then use a coordinating punch to make a simple flower. Then I stamped "Thanks" to the white paper and then again shadowed the edges with Daffodil ink and then used Green and Yellow markers to color it. Then pasted the yellow and white pieces to the card. Then I pasted the green circle that I punched out, followed by the ribbon. On top I added the flower with a green brad added to it. Simple card but every detail look a little bit of time.

For this card, I used Bigshot dies to cut the shapes. But the initial step was to get the design on the paper. I took the flowers design stamp, colored with markers and then stamped it on to the white paper stock. I do not remember what each of these stamps are called but next time I should make sure I get the names. The markers used were rose, pink, yellow, blue and green. Then I used the soft suede to print the pattern below. After that, I cut out the shapes with coordinating dies for brown and white card stock. For the background. I used another flower stamp and used Olive color ink to stamp the background. I added pearls and ribbon for additional eye-catchy look. Used dimensionals to stick the shapes up on the card to make them stand out.

I used the crimping tool here to create the ruffle look to the pink paper used here. And then I used the sentiment stamps, used black and pink markers to color the stamp instead of ink and then stamped it up. Used olive ink for the designs and added some glitter.

This was another card that I thought came out nice. It is pretty straightforward. Unlike the usual card, there are two pieces to it. One small one that is enclosed behind a button and the one bigger piece that is the card itself. I like the butterfly and all the coordinating colors that seemed to work well together. Let me know how you like it.